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| Karl Friedrich Lessing (1867) |
"The Eucharist is an act—better: a decision. [A] decision so irrevocable that, in it, Jesus can already communicate the
fruits of the act itself before it has [actually] taken place: it is thus that, on Holy Thursday, in
anticipation of the sacrifice of the Cross, [and] even though his body has not
yet been tortured and his blood had not yet been poured [out], Jesus can share
with his disciples his Body given for us and his Blood poured [out]
for us. And this, by rendering them capable,
by communion in this mystery, of not making of it a harpagmos, but of receiving it in the same spirit in which he is
given to them [(il leur est donné)] in order that [they], in their turn might
themselves be given [(se donner)]. [The
verbs] ‘take’ and ‘eat’ have henceforth [been] transformed in sense:In Genesis 3:6, these same verbs describe coveteousness in action: in order to be as the god of the serpent and to master everything, the woman takes and eats. It is these acts of taking and eating that Jesus invites his disciples to undertake [(poser)] when he shares the bread with them. But the meaning of these two gestures is very different. There they render concrete the totalizing envy that denies all alterity; here they are [a] reception of the other who manifests his desire to give himself [away]. In the case of the bread 'given in order that the world might have life' (Jn 6:51), to take and eat on the word of Jesus is the act par excellence of the acknowledgement of God who, in this Jesus, reveals that gives [us] all things (cf. Rom 8:32).The fruit of the eucharistic attitude of Jesus (an action within the passion!) is to cause us to enter into the 'new and eternal' covenant with God. It is not just, in fact, that the Eucharist gives us a share in this paradoxical act, but that, by actualizing the resurrection that is its end game [(aboutissement)], it gives us the capacity to respond to it and to deploy the fecundity of it in our lives by taking the same road. Thus, the request for our daily bread is inscribed within the pascal act of him who 'suffered for [us] and left [us] the way to the end that [we might follow] in his steps' (1 Pet 2:21). [The] request for [the] life which is death to self, it prepares us to live our own death as Christ experienced his: in order that it might be given in communion with as [a] source of life."
"it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable
to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points
of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch
is everything when you are balancing."
"This [one] text alone should have checked the blind dash of all those who hurl themselves into pretending to be at once Christians and Hegelians."The life of God and divine intelligence, then, can, if we like, be spoken of as love disporting with itself; but this idea falls into edification, and even sinks into insipidity, if it lacks the seriousness, the suffering, the patience, and the labour of the negative.
Das Leben Gottes und das göttliche Erkennen mag also wohl als ein Spielen der Liebe mit sich selbst ausgesprochen werden; diese Idee sinkt zur Erbaulichkeit und selbst zur Fadheit herab, wenn der Ernst, der Schmerz, die Geduld und Arbeit des Negativen darin fehlt.Marion's point is that Hegel
Hegel's logic cannot work that way, and the system is not something to be trifled with: it is too well thought out, and one step toward it is complete capitulation.
Pride of man and earthly glory,
"Christ Jesus performs in his passion precisely the same
performance of agapè as in the
Trinity, because the Son that he is from all eternity never 'steps out' of/'leaves' [(«sort» de)] the Trinity, never alienates himself from or externalizes himself
in relation to it, in accordance with the absurd (in order to go where?) and blasphemous (the Son, would
he set aside [(se déferait-il de)] his [own] filiation?) doctrine of the
philosophers. The opposite is true: Christ Jesus re-integrates the world—despite its
finitude and sin—into the Trinitarian play [(jeu)]; he 'recapitulates all
things' (Eph 1:10) in himself, 'to the end that God may be all in all' (1 Cor
15:28). The Trinitarian paradox [that] the
Son possesses nothing that he has not received and for this very [reason] is in principle absolutely—this [Trinitarian paradox] Christ Jesus
articulates and accomplishes in the economy, from the depths of finitude and
human [(notre)] sin. . . . The 'kenosis' does not introduce the negation [(negatif)], the alienation, namely the 'death
of God' into (or rather outside of) the Trinity; it renders manifest, to men
trapped in the obscurity of sin and rotting in hatred of self and of all of
all, the eternal play of the gift and of the abandonment in which the three
[Persons] of the Trinity triumphantly rejoice [(triomphent et jubilant)]. The masterwork accomplished by Christ does
not consist in the heroism of his virtues or the enormity of his suffering (for
in itself neither the exemplarity of a model nor the pain of an expiation saves
[(sauve qui que ce soit)]); it consists in this, that, like an inspired musician,
he performs the melody and the orchestration to perfection [(la mélodie et l’orchestration
les plus parfaits)] on an instrument that has now but a single remaining string
(free choice), a single string rendered (by the perversity of evil) completely discordant. With this instrument—our nature
which plays always false—he plays perfectly true [(parfaitement juste)] in
accordance with its true nature [(suivant sa propre nature)]. [On the] strength of this performance, he can
promise us that we, too, we will come to play true (or almost), provided that
we allow ourselves to be inspired by the same Spirit who unites him eternally
with his Father."At the very least, let us never speak [(ne parlons jamais)] of 'divine kenosis' on the cross. The Trinitarian glory is manifest in the kenosis, but the kenosis is not equivalent to it. The kenosis must be contemplated from and in view of the Trinity. The kenosis brings the Trinity to light [(expose)], but does not explicate [(explique)] it. On the contrary, [the kenosis] is a question of a revelation, through the obscurity of sin, of the Trinitarian play—in which agapè goes beyond, in its gravity [(sérieux)], its travail, its patience, and its suffering, all that our poor understanding and profound resentment imagines to be the gravity of the concept. There is infinitely more gravity in the Trinitarian joy than is found in the futility—grim to be sure, but finite—of our sin. The Trinity is at work even in the kenosis, because the distance within [the Trinity] includes and surpasses even those [distances]—still finite—of evil, of sin, of death. 'Power (dunamis) is made perfect in weakness' (2 Cor 12:9) precisely because 'with God all things are possible (para tô theo panta dunata)' (Mk 10:27 & Lk 18:27).
"'While Martin
was praying in his cell, the evil spirit stood before him, environed in a
glittering radiance, by such pretence more easily to deceive him, clad also in
royal robes, crowned with a golden and jeweled diadem, with shoes covered with
gold, with serene face, and bright looks, so as to seem nothing so little as
what he was. Martin at first was dazzled
at the sight; and for a long while both parties kept silence. At length the evil one began:—"Acknowledge," he says, "O Martin, whom thou seest. I
am Christ; I am now descending upon earth, and I wished first to manifest
myself to thee." Martin still kept
silent, and returned no answer. The
devil ventured to repeat his bold pretence. "Martin, why hesitate in believing, when thou seest I am Christ?" Then he, understanding by revelation of the
Spirit, that it was the evil one and not God, answered, "Jesus, the Lord,
announced not that He should come in glittering clothing, and radiant with a
diadem. I will not believe that Christ
is come, save in that state and form in which He suffered, save with the show of the wounds of the Cross [(nisi in eo habitu formaque, qua passus est, nisi crucis stigmata)]." At these words, the other vanished forthwith
as smoke, and filled the cell with so horrible an odour as to leave indubitable
proofs who he was. That this so took
place, I know from the mouth of Martin himself, lest any one should think it
fabulous.’ —[Sulpicius Severus, ]Vit. B. M. 2[4, CSEL
1, ed. Halm (1866), 134]The application of this vision to Martin’s age, is obvious; I suppose it means in this day, that Christ comes not in pride of intellect, or reputation for philosophy. These are the glittering robes in which Satan is now arraying. Many spirits are abroad, more are issuing from the pit; the credentials which they display are the precious gifts of mind, beauty, richness, depth, originality. Christian, look hard at them with Martin in silence, and ask them for the print of the nails.I was put onto this by First things.
